Why
do we need compulsory-attendance laws? Why compel parents to send their
children to public schools? Wouldn't parents naturally educate their children
without compulsion? Human nature and history prove this to be the case.
All over the world, parents push to educate their children, with or without
public schools.

In Japan,
school is compulsory only up to the equivalent of junior high school (ninth-grade
level). High schools in Japan, like colleges in America, are privately
owned and charge tuition. Middle-school students compete fiercely for
a place in high schools even though their parents must pay to get them
in. Yet most Japanese parents push their kids to apply for high school
and scrape up the money for tuition, without the Japanese government's
pressuring them to do so.

In America,
millions of parents voluntarily pay thousands of dollars a year in tuition
to send their young children to private kindergartens, and their older
children to a private college. Obviously, most parents think that educating
their children is important. So why do we need compulsory-attendance laws
for first through twelfth-grade education?

Compulsory-attendance
laws imply that government has to force parents to educate their children.
Common sense and history prove this notion false. Up to the 1850s, before
we had public schools in America, the average literacy rate was almost
90 percent (excluding slaves of course, because it was a crime to teach
a slave to read). Yet most parents taught their children to read at home.
They did not need town officials to force them to educate their children.
All over the world, most parents' want to give their children a good education
so they can have a secure future.

Compulsory-attendance
laws also imply that some parents are too ignorant or indifferent to their
children's welfare to educate their kids. If this was not the case, then
why compel parents at all? Local governments therefore believe they have
to force these "bad" parents to deposit their kids in public schools,
for the alleged good of the children.

In effect,
local governments and public-school authorities don't trust average parents
to have the decency and common sense to educate their kids unless school
authorities force them to. That notion is as absurd as claiming that parents
would not feed their children unless government authorities forced them
to.

There
is a saying that if you want to know the real purpose of a law or social
system, follow the money. Who benefits the most from our public schools?
Certainly not our kids. I submit that the real purpose of compulsory-attendance
laws is to enforce a public-school system that benefits public-school
employees.

Tenured
public-school teachers get guaranteed jobs, unlike the rest of us who
have to prove our competence to our employers or customers. Teachers and
principals get fat salaries, pensions, and benefits compared to the end
product they put out. If anything, many teachers are over-paid, not under-paid,
considering the fact that public schools can barely teach millions of
children to read by the time they graduate high-school.

According
to a 2002 survey by the Dep't. of Labor, teachers get paid a hefty average
salary of $30.75 an hour. That is more than the average nurse, chemist,
biologist, civil engineer, mechanical engineer, or police officer gets
paid. Teachers only have to take simple education courses to "qualify"
as a teacher, yet they make only slightly less than the average physicist,
who earns about $32 an hour. The notion that teachers are underpaid is
therefore a farce.

Many
public-school teachers are competent and dedicated. However, tenured teachers
and principals rarely get fired no matter how much parents might complain
about them. A private-school owner can fire a lazy or incompetent teacher.
Public-school teachers, in contrast, can be as lazy, mediocre, or incompetent
as they wish, and it is almost impossible to fire them. That's quite a
cushy set-up. That's also one reason why public-school employees like
compulsory-attendance laws and other laws that deny parents school choice.

Compulsory-attendance
laws create, in effect, an education prison system. Prisons get their
prisoners because the police drag them in. Public schools get their students
because compulsory-attendance laws let school authorities drag children
into their schools, with or without parent's consent.

Public
schools get their students by force (even though many parents voluntarily
send their kids to these schools). If parents refuse to send their children
to these schools and don't obey the state's homeschooling regulations,
school authorities can sic child-welfare authorities on the parents. These
child-welfare agents can prosecute parents for "child abuse" or other
alleged crimes against their children because the parents won't send their
kids to a public school. Also, if parents refuse to pay their school taxes
to 'support' these schools, their friendly local government will foreclose
on their home.

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In effect,
public-school authorities say to parents, "give me your children or I
will put you in jail or foreclose on your home." Public schools are therefore,
in my considered opinion, simply a legalized extortion racquet against
parents and their children for the benefit of public-school employees.

Mr. Turtel has
written two books, published over fifty articles, and has been interviewed
in both print and broadcast media on the subject. His latest book, Public
Schools, Public Menace has garnered national media attention – recently,
for example, Dr. Laura Schlessinger featured the book on her nationally
syndicated radio show.

Joel Turtel is
available to discuss his book Public Schools, Public Menace in the media,
at conferences, or with individual groups. Be warned though, you may be
shocked by the revelations he has uncovered in America's public-school
system.